


Close Third

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [78]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate SG1, Jack O'Neill, astronomy."Jack's engaged in a little astronomy when Sara shows up to make good on her phone call.





	Close Third

“You always did like looking at the stars.”

Jack lifted his head. Sara was standing in the doorway at the edge of the balcony, hands clasped behind her back, posture unsure.

“Hey, Sara. Glad you could make it.” Jack dusted his hands off. It was a pleasant enough evening, but a bit cool. He cast about, grabbed one of the folding chairs propped up against the railing and unfolded it. “Have a seat.”

Sara perched tentatively on the chair, and Jack unfolded another one, opened it at an angle to her, so they weren’t directly opposite each other like...opponents.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.” Sara smiled.

Jack realized he ought to have brought her a drink. “Not a problem. I’m honestly surprised we didn’t have this conversation sooner. So...you signed an NDA. You have pretty good clearance. A JAG officer gave me a list of things I can’t tell you about, but there’s a lot I can. Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning, perhaps.”

The beginning, well - the beginning was Jack’s love of the stars, his childhood curiosity about what was out there in the vastness of space. “You remember those two airmen who came for me? A few months after Charlie died. For a mission with Kawalski and Ferretti and some of the rest of the old gang.”

Sara nodded.

“Well, they wanted me to lead a strike force through the Stargate.”

“Stargate.” Sara tested the word. “I heard him say that - the boy who looked like Charlie - after he looked like you. What is it?”

“Pretty much what it sounds like. A gate to the stars. In fact -” Jack rose up, crossed to the telescope, peered in. He glanced at the sky, swung it around. “Come look.” He had to adjust it carefully before he found just the right cluster of stars.

Sara came to stand beside him. “What am I looking at?”

“You are looking at three stars that function as three suns for a planet called Abydos,” Jack said. “First alien planet I ever set foot on.”

Sara straightened up, eyes wide. “ _First?_ ”

“Yeah. You’ve met my team - Daniel, Sam, Teal’c.”

“Teal’c?”

“Big guy. Goes by Murray, when he’s around humans.”

“ _Humans?_ ”

“Yeah. He’s a Jaffa. Human-adjacent. He’s like two hundred years old. He betrayed his god to help me, Daniel, and Sam escape from something akin to certain death. Good man. Not much of a talker. Funny, though.” Jack jammed his hands into his pockets. It was uncanny, talking to Sara about this. He wondered if this was how Sam felt, when she told her father and her boyfriend Pete that one time.

Sara wobbled, and Jack caught her, guided her back over to her chair.

“Okay, maybe that’s not so much the beginning. So, for thousands and thousands of years, our galaxy has been ruled by aliens known as the goa’uld.”

“Goa’uld.” Sara tested the word. “Okay.”

“One of those Goa’uld came to Earth, took a human host, and pretended to be the god Ra.”

“Ra. In Ancient Egypt.” Sara nodded. “Go on.”

So Jack told her about the humans rising up, chasing Ra off the planet, and burying the gate and then, thousands of years later, the gate being found. He talked about Daniel unlocking the gate, and that first mission in the wake of Charlie’s death.

“A suicide mission?” Sara echoed.

“We don’t actually call them that, but the risks of returning through the gate weren’t great. Were less than great, once Daniel realized he didn’t actually know the address home.”

“Jack.” Sara reached out, covered his hand with hers.

He shrugged. “How do the kids put it these days? I was a bit of a basket case for a hot minute.”

Sara squeezed.

“So - the person you saw who was both me and Charlie. Alien entity. Accidentally ran into it offworld, and it came back through the gate, looking like me. It couldn’t survive on Earth in me-form for long, so it changed into Charlie.”

“Did he make it back to the Stargate?”

“Yeah. He made it home.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

Jack shook his head.

Sara tipped her head back, looked at the stars. “Do you want to see him again?”

“No. I keep Charlie’s picture in my office, though. Used to keep it in my locker.”

“The school picture?”

“The baseball one.”

“That’s a good picture.” Sara smiled. She cleared her throat. “What about JD? Who lives with Evan. He looks just like Charlie would have.”

“That’s complicated.” Jack bit his lip. “How do you know Evan?”

“Evan does his grocery shopping at the same place as me. We talk, sometimes. Commiserate about going shopping alone versus with the husband and kids.” Sara shrugged. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“Major Evan Lorne served with Stargate Command, was medically discharged after he had a nasty run-in with some aliens off-world,” Jack said. “And JD is - Mini Me.”

Sara blinked. “Come again?”

“He’s a clone of me, only the alien who did it pressed the wrong button on the xerox machine, and he came out a teenager.”

“Oh. So Evan adopted him? Because he has clearance.”

“Ah, no. He was emancipated.” Jack eyed her. “Can you imagine me, living in someone’s house, pretending they were my parents? Going back to high school?”

Sara burst out laughing. “Oh, okay. No. But - Evan doesn’t seem like the overbearing parent type. JD seems to have plenty of independence.”

Jack took a deep breath. “No, Evan’s not the overbearing parent-type, best as I can see. The boy Cameron Mitchell adopted seems to be flourishing. JD, Evan, and Cameron are taking good care of him.”

“Tyler,” Sara said. “Evan’s boy is named Tyler.” Then her brow furrowed. “You said Cam adopted him?”

She sounded much more familiar with the denizens of Casa Atlantica than Jack had ever been. He nodded.

“Are Cam and Evan together?”

He nodded again.

“But JD -”

“Is also with them.”

Sara’s eyes went wide. “You mean JD - _you_ -”

“I always loved you,” Jack said softly. “When we were together, and for a long time after, it was you and only you.”

Sara was out of her chair and across the balcony. “But you -”

“Both,” Jack said quietly. “But I could never - not like JD. I joined the Air Force. He was given the option, to hitch back up, get fast-tracked back to field-grade, but he said no, and I respect that.”

Sara pressed a hand to her mouth.

And then there was a holler from down in the back yard.

“Hey, Old Guy. Heard you were in town. Evan sent me over with some baked goods. Can I come on up?”

Jack peered over the railing and saw JD standing down there, holding a massive cookie sheet like a waiter tray. Evan had made Jack’s favorite, simple sugar cookies.

“You know,” he said, “every time you call me _Old Guy_ for the entire neighborhood to hear, you make me sound like I’m a hundred.”

“Lucky for you,” JD said, “you’ll never actually see a hundred, now will you? You want these cookies or not? Because I have the metabolism of a twenty-one-year-old and I’m not afraid to use it, and if I get sick, I have a lot of pampering coming my way after spending the summer being a better nursemaid than anyone ever thought possible.”

“As much as I do want pretty much anything Evan Lorne ever bakes, I have company, and you’re being a punk-face.”

“Punk-face? Really?”

“Too much?”

“Little bit. Especially since you’ve been friends with a linguist for over a decade.” JD cleared his throat. “I’ll just put these in the kitchen and go.”

“It’s Sara who’s here,” Jack said. “Want to come up and say hi?”

JD’s expression turned blank, the kind of blank Jack knew was hiding intense discomfort and panic, mind traveling at a mile a minute to figure out ex-fil. But then he said, “Sure. Be right up. I’ll transfer the cookies onto some plates. Evan’s really precious about his cookie sheets.”

Jack turned back to Sara, who’d un-plastered herself from the railing and come closer.

“I figured you two needed to talk,” he said.

“Do we?” she said. “What can he possibly tell me that you can’t?”

“We’re not the same person, not anymore.”

“But -?”

“But there’s no one in this galaxy who knows me like he does.” And wasn’t that the rub? JD knew Jack like no two people had ever known each other before, knew all the things Jack had never even told Sara, would never tell even his best, closest friends. “And it might be easier for him to tell you other things you might want to know.”

“Like?” Sara asked.

“So, Evan sent me over here to tell you, because Evan’s a bleeding heart, that Tyler and I have joined an intramural baseball team, and you’re invited to our games.” JD appeared in the doorway, bearing a plate of cookies. “Sara.” He nodded at her.

“JD.” Sara swallowed hard, tried a smile. “What do the initials stand for?”

“Jonathan Daniel. But no one calls me that. Not even when I’ve been a bad boy. Cookie?”

“Thanks.” Sara accepted one. “So, Jack has told me -”

“Everything she has clearance for,” Jack said helpfully.

“Everything?” JD raised his eyebrows.

Jack nodded. “Everything factual.”

“And you think Evan’s bleeding heart tendencies have rubbed off on me?”

“You are here with cookies.” Jack snagged one, bit in. Only two people had ever made sugar cookies this good before. One was Jack’s dead mother, the other was Sara.

JD set the plate on top of the closed grill lid and crossed the balcony, peered into the telescope. “Ah, the three suns of Abydos.” He straightened up, looked Sara in the eye. “What do you want to know?”

“Why didn’t you come back to me?” Sara asked. “After everything with - the crystal alien who looked like Charlie.”

JD unfolded one of the chairs with a smooth motion. Sara tracked the gesture, studying, assessing. JD moved just like Jack did, in the small things, the subtle gestures. But he’d also gone to great lengths to hold himself like a modern youth, to cock his hip when he was being insolent.

JD sank into the chair with the same sprawl Jack used when he wanted to convey complete and utter insouciance. “Why? Because I was _him_. Too broken-hearted to even think about exploring my own feelings, let alone talking to you about yours.”

“Hey,” Jack protested.

JD straightened up, flicked a glance at him. “Go. Enjoy the cookies.”

Jack glanced at Sara. She was gazing at JD, wide-eyed, but she nodded. So Jack rose up, grabbed a couple of cookies, and headed into the house. He headed downstairs and into the den - and then made a detour into his office, where he’d kept a few mementos of Charlie - his own baseball glove, and the ball he’d used to play catch with Charlie.

JD and Tyler had joined an intramural baseball team. Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d picked up a baseball without his hands starting to shake. He reached for the baseball and -

No. Not yet. But maybe one day.

He went out the front door and sat on the front step, tipped his head back to look at the stars. The light pollution made it difficult to really see the best of them. The prettiest stars on Earth were Antarctica. The prettiest night sky ever, however, was on Abydos. Jack wondered if he’d ever get to see it again.

An hour later, JD came strolling out of the house, hands in his pockets. “You happy?”

“About what?”

“That was like pulling out my own teeth. With rusty pliers.”

“Still not as bad as Ba’al.”

“Might run a close third.” JD tipped his head back, gazed at the sky. “It’s not Abydos or Antarctica, but it’s not bad. It’s home now.”

Jack nodded. “Thanks, Young One.”

“You’re welcome, Jack. Remember, baseball games. If you ever want to. We’re the Colorado Springs Chickens.”

“Really?”

JD laughed. “Yeah. Really.” He straightened up, shook himself out, and headed for a very nice motorcycle.

Jack watched him strap on a helmet, kick the thing to life, and roar off into the night. How had he brought cookies on that thing?

“He invited me to his baseball games too, you know,” Sara said. “And to dinner sometimes. Extended the same to you.”

Jack knew Cameron, Evan, and JD were doing right by Tyler, and he was glad for Tyler - and for JD. But Jack hadn’t paid the same price JD had for that second chance, and he wasn’t going to ride on the kid’s coattails. “Thanks,” he said. “If anything else ever strikes your fancy, tickles your curiosity, let me know.”

Sara nodded, leaned down, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Jack.”

“You’re welcome, Sara.”

“We were great together, weren’t we?”

“The greatest.”


End file.
